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Underneath its floor are still the huge compressed-air cylinders for starting the diesel engines and the fuel-oil tanks for feeding them.
Close at hand is another building, now an important garage, which was put up at the same time as a scene-painting dock and construction shop. It is in two stories and had at the time it was first finished a six-inch slot running through the first floor for the whole width of the building so that backcloths, pinned on to the huge slung-frame, could be raised or lowered in the slot to suit the comfort and convenience of the painter who stood on the floor in front of it. This was also built in advance so as to serve the pressing needs of the existing studios. In the meantime the diesel engines and the generators were brought down from Liverpool and the engineers started erecting them with the aid of a travelling gantry under the roof of the new engine-house, and while they were at it — it took over a year — I ordered the switchboard for the distribution of power to the studios, and in due course that was also erected. This switchboard alone cost £3,250. That will give some idea of the size of the installation.
Now comes another step. And another and another. There are particulars of an issue of £40,000 debentures, authorised August 7th, 1920 — present issue £5,000 — charged on the company's undertaking and property present and future, including uncalled capital: the issue on September 30th, 1920, of £5,000 debentures, part of a series already registered. Another £3,000 on October 14th. Another, same date, £2,500, and another twelve days later of a further £2,500. If I wasn't getting cold feet by that time I must have had a remarkably fine circulation.
Yet what could I do? I feel sure now that the whole electrical undertaking was a mistake. There must surely have been some way of buying the juice instead of spending all that upon making it. But that is easy wisdom after it is too late. Besides, we were making good money with good films all this time: Anna the Adventuress, publishing date, February 3rd, Alps Button, May 4th, Amazing Quest, July 3 1 st, and half a dozen other big films, as well as the usual number of smaller ones. There must have been several compensating things to disguise the dread of trouble to come, and even now I think, with full consciousness of the niggers in the woodpile which I have already mentioned, we might have won through if the national post-war boom had continued.
The boom was followed by a slump and a serious one. The trade had a sharp lesson and pulled itself together. We didn't. I
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